List of Notable Alliances
An alliance is a pact formed between two or more people in the Survivor competition to declare loyalty until a certain point, usually the finale. While most alliances are short-lived and crumble quickly, some alliances have achieved notoriety for their dominance in the game, popularity of players involved, comical tendencies, or powerful dynamics. These are some of those alliances. '' is considered one of the most popular alliances of all time.]] The First Alliance The concept of a ''Survivor alliance was first invented by Tigger in The Hundred Acre Woods, where Tigger brought Pooh and Rabbit into a trio to eliminate the weak link, Piglet. The trio were forced to turn on each other at their next Tribal Council, when they split the votes 1-1-1 between each other. When they learned that they would draw rocks to determine the elimination if they were deadlocked, Pooh switched his vote in the revote and eliminated Tigger. Pooh and Rabbit remained a duo through the merge, where they were forced to face the three surviving members of the Milk tribe. After confusing Gopher and Owl with different strategies, resulting in the elimination of Christopher Robin. After convincing Gopher and Owl to split their votes, Pooh and Rabbit did the same, landing in a tie that ended in Owl's elimination. The alliance came to an end when Gopher won the final Immunity and eliminated Rabbit. However, Pooh defeated Gopher in a 3-1 Jury vote and won the game. The Unknown Four The Unknown Four was the first alliance to achieve remarkable popularity. After the merge in USA, a rivalry broke out between Abraham Lincoln and James Madison. Madison and Jimmy Carter targeted power-player Ronald Reagan, while the latter and Rutherford B. Hayes targeted Madison. During this scuffle, Lincoln saw the perfect opportunity to shake the game; and brought Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant, and William Howard Taft into an alliance called The Unknown Four. While the votes flew between Madison and Reagan, The Unknown Four made their first move in secrecy and eliminated Carter. Now in control, The Unknown Four eliminated both Reagan and Madison sequentially, leaving Hayes as the underdog. However, Hayes won Immunity, forcing The Unknown Four to eliminate Grant. The alliance then became The Unknown Three. After Lincoln won the final four Immunity, Jefferson and Taft feared that they were bigger threats to win than Hayes, and tied the votes between them. Rather than going to rocks, they were forced into a fire-making challenge, in which Taft barely pulled out a win, eliminating Jefferson. After Lincoln won the final Immunity, he eliminated Hayes and brought Taft to the final two and won against him in a 4-3 Jury vote. The Classic Duo Sound Stage implemented the tribe switch twist, which placed pre-season colleagues Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon on the same tribe. They decided to work together and vote out Linda Ronstadt with the help of Simon's ally, Klaus Nomi. However, Nomi flipped and voted Garfunkel, but the Classic Duo stuck together and forced Linda into a tiebreaker with Garfunkel. Garfunkel won and Linda was eliminated. After arguing with Nomi for a while, Simon convinced him to return to his side, and the three were able to eliminate Barry Manilow after the merge. In a shocking turn of events, Simon considered that victory would not be possible with Garfunkel around, and backstabbed him in the first notable Survivor betrayal. Simon reached the finale, but received hatred from the Jury, and lost unanimously. In Survivor: All-Stars, the duo reunited at the merge, where Simon confronted Garfunkel about putting the past behind them. Garfunkel was unsure, but the fact remained that they were both non-winners, so they agreed to stick together with the other non-winners; Hayes, Plankton, and Paul. Simon had convinced Plankton to abandon his alliance with Squidward to stick with him, allowing the non-winners to eliminate William, Squidward, and Sue Ellen. Simon then made a "suggestion" that they backstab Garfunkel, which Paul repeated to the intended target, resulting in a mass argument breaking out. After a crazy Tribal Council where votes flew in every direction, Simon betrayed Garfunkel once again. Simon would go on to reach the final two and once again lose in a 6-2 vote. The Aquatic Duo The "Aquatic Duo" is the fan-given title to the popular duo of Sheldon J. Plankton and Squidward Tentacles in Bikini Bottom. Throughout the tribe stage, Plankton argued with Mr. Krabs endlessly, but the tribe stuck together until the merge, where SpongeBob SquarePants became the only member of the Air tribe to reach it. Sandy Cheeks sided with Mr. Krabs, while Squidward sided with Plankton, leaving SpongeBob as the swing vote. Due to Plankton and Squidward's charisma, SpongeBob sided with them, and Sandy helped eliminate Mr. Krabs due to having no other choice. Sandy followed after him, leaving SpongeBob in the final three with the duo. Squidward won the final Immunity and eliminated SpongeBob, making this the first alliance to ever have all of its members reach the end. Squidward won against Plankton in a 3-1 vote. The duo later reunited in Survivor: All-Stars, after the second tribe switch put them on a tribe with Garfunkel, Elvis, Pooh, and Rabbit. The duo agreed to work together again, but Garfunkel was determined to create a non-winners alliance, bringing in Plankton and Rabbit. Plankton insisted on working with Squidward, much to Garfunkel's disapproval. Plankton did not get along with Garfunkel and attempted to blindside him, but Squidward flipped and eliminated Rabbit with the other winners, Elvis and Pooh. However, Plankton was forgiving and gave Squidward a chance for redemption by voting Elvis with him. Squidward then told Elvis to vote Pooh, and Pooh to vote Plankton, creating confusion among the winners and allowing him and Plankton to blindside Elvis. On day 29, the tribes merged into one, where the division fell between winners vs. non-winners, with Squidward being perfectly in between. Squidward flipped on the winners to eliminate William, but Simon found this to be shady behavior, and convinced Plankton to turn against Squidward. This resulted in Squidward's elimination. Plankton would go on to receive 5th place. Mikasa's Alliance Mikasa's Alliance from Survivor: Back to Japan - Blood vs. Water is often considered one of the biggest failures of an alliance. After a tribe switch on day 14, Mikasa Ackerman forged a bond with Haru Ichinose. The two then bonded with the reunited duo of Ash Ketchum and Misty Yawa, and created a foursome alliance. Come the merge, the two brought in their former tribe members; Edward Elric, Ichigo Kurosaki, and Natsu Dragneel. Edward, however, was mostly interested in working with his brother, Alphonse. Due to this, Natsu gave permission for the group to vote out his loved one, Lucy. After her elimination, however, the duo of Sakura and Tomoyo began spreading lies of false targets around to alliance members. Nobody knew whether to believe them or not, and it created a strong sense of mistrust. As such, under Mikasa's orders, the tribe voted out Ash to lessen the margin of distrust. The level of trust significantly dropped when Mikasa began accusing Ichinose of aligning with Sakura and Tomoyo. Due to this, she plotted against the alliance and convinced Alphonse, Edward, Ichigo, and Natsu to blindside Ichinose with her. The plan was successful, but caused Mikasa and the rest of the alliance to soon crumble. Mikasa became trigger happy, and the Elric brothers were more than happy to feed into this. The alliance then betrayed and eliminated Misty, with the help of a Double Vote Edward had received at the auction prior. Even though Sakura and Tomoyo voted with the minority, this slip-up allowed them to seize control. After sliding into the ranks, Tomoyo managed to convince the alliance members to turn on one another, leading to mass confusion and resulting in a memorable Tribal Council that ended in a 3-1-1-1-1 vote. With only three votes going against her, Mikasa was ultimately eliminated. Ichigo, Edward, Alphonse, and Natsu all followed until their sworn enemies; Sakura and Tomoyo, made up the final two. Host Luke P. has noted this alliance as "one of the most frustrating things I have ever had to sit through in Survivor."